SOS Text
by Hollyflash
Summary: They needed a signal, in case he wasn't able to get to them. Texting an S.O.S. seemed like a brilliant idea- until Sam and Tucker both slept past one.
1. Part 1: SOS Text

I felt the need to write some angst. This was the attempt. I'm not exactly sure what was going on with this. Okay, I kind of am, but it's ridiculously long and filled with my Timeline Theory and crap.

Phantom Planet, to the fandom, is kind of like that one cousin who got arrested for public nudity at the family reunion. We all know about it, but we pretend we don't and that it never happened. That is the thought process I'm using here and why it is not part of this story.

* * *

S.O.S. Text

"We need a signal," Tucker spoke up, and Danny lifted his head from where he was sprawled out beside Sam on her bed, one hand resting on the bandages that had been wrapped around his chest.

"Why?" He asked, and after a pause added on, "For what?"

"In case you get hurt like... _That-_" He motioned to the hybrid's bandages, which were covered with reddish-brown and bright green stains, "-Again and we aren't there to patch you up or you can't make it over here or... Yeah, we need a signal. Or you can stop ghost hunting at night."

Danny scoffed, and Sam ran a hand through his currently snowy-white hair. "Danny, I think it's a good idea. We need a signal, so that if you're hurt and can't get to us..."

"I'll never use it," Danny mumbled, laying his head back down on Sam's bed. "...What about an S.O.S.? If I'm ever hurt really badly... I'll text you guys one or something. That work?"

Sam and Tucker both nodded, and Sam moved a little ways away from Danny. "...You can sleep on my bed, Danny. Tucker and I will grab some air mattresses or something."

Danny lifted his head once again, "Sam, you don't have to, I don't-"

"Dude, you just about got shish-kabob'd by Skulker." Tucker spoke up, "You should take the really comfy bed, we'll be fine, and we didn't almost get skinned."

"I wasn't almost skinned," Danny muttered, "He just kind of... Cut my side... Yeah..."

Sam and Tucker exchanged a glance, a little concerned by the fact that Danny sounded so relaxed. They could only chalk up so much of what he did to the painkillers -of which he had taken an unhealthy amount of- but the way he could so easily dismiss a ghost who wanted to outright kill him...

It wasn't natural.

Little did they know that eventually they would be wishing desperately for that Danny back very soon.

.-.-.-.-.-.

Two weeks later, and three days after Danny had apparently joined up with Valerie to rescue his 'cousin', Sam awoke late in the day after staying up until 2:57 in the morning playing Doom with Tucker.

She reached over beside her, slowly picking up her phone to check the time.

_1:36... Darn it, Tucker, why did you make me stay up so- oh. I have a text?_

Pressing a few buttons brought her to a screen, which revealed that the text had come from Danny at 3:02 the morning before, Sam bit back a groan.

_Great, five minutes after I went to bed. What did he want?_

She pressed a few more buttons on her phone, and nearly dropped it on her face in shock. She threw it aside, jumped out of bed, and quickly threw on some clothes before running out of her house in a panic.

Danny's text had been simple; _S.O.S._

.-.-.-.-.-.

Maddie opened the door to the sound of frantic knocking. On the other side was Danny's friend, Sam, red-faced and nearly out of breath. She had her hands on her knees and slowly lifted her head.

"...Did you just run all the way here from your house?" Maddie asked, raising an eyebrow.

Sam's only reply was to slowly raised her head and half whisper, "Danny..."

"He's... In his room," Maddie supplied unsurely, and Sam pushed past her. Maddie looked after the girl with a look of confusion, which only strengthened as Sam bumped into Jazz who had been coming down from upstairs, muttered Danny's name once again, and both girls rushed up the stairs.

Maddie stayed where she was for a moment before closing the door. That was odd- very odd indeed. She was considering going after them, until Jazz's ear-piercing scream reached her ears.

There was no moment of consideration- Maddie ran up the stairs faster than she should've been able to. Sam and Jazz had opened the door to Danny's room, Sam was all but hugging the doorframe as she muttered 'no' and Jazz had fallen to her knees with tears streaming from her eyes.

Maddie was behind them, looking into her son's room within moments. What she saw caused every motherly instinct in her to rise up in her.

From the window, dragging along the ground, was a trail of glowing green ectoplasm with bits of red- _is it blood? Oh my God, oh my God- _that pooled up right beside Danny's bed with a lot more red present.

And her son- her baby, her boy, her Danny- was nowhere in sight.

Maddie's scream as a result was perhaps the loudest of all, "_DANNY!_"

.-.-.-.-.-.

Tucker showed up and hour later, having gotten the same text. When he saw the same thing Maddie, Sam, and Jazz all had, he freaked before rushing into the lab and telling the Boo-merang to 'find Danny'.

It came right back to Tucker- as any normal boomerang would.

No matter how many times he tried and what he said- "Find Daniel!", "Find Danny Phantom!", "Find Danny Fenton!", "Find Phantom!", "Find Fenton!"- it wouldn't lock into Danny.

It was if he wasn't there.

.-.-.-.-.-.

It was Jack who found the Fenton Thermos stashed under Danny's bed, nearly twelve hours later. Maddie emptied it into a Ghost Shielded area of the lab within twenty-four.

It contained the robotic ghost, Skulker. He ranted about with the new weapon he had used, and how with a wound as deep as the ghost child had gotten, there was no way he could survive. Skulker claimed that he had created a knife that would override Phantom's healing abilities, and stabbed the ghost boy almost completely through from his left side to his right, angling the blade upwards as he did so.

Maddie and Jack weren't exactly sure why Jazz had burst out in tears and accused the ghost of being a liar. Or why the ghost had just laughed in reply when they asked about their son.

.-.-.-.-.-.

It was two days after that when Vlad caught wind of Danny's disappearance.

Jazz, desperate for any chance to see her brother again, told him everything.

Maddie and Jack weren't sure why the robotic suit of the ghost they were keeping had been rendered nothing more than scrap metal, or why the Wisconsin Ghost produced and completely obviated a small green frog-like ghost from the suit before disappearing into the Ghost Zone.

.-.-.-.-.-.

It was seven days after the initial incident when Jazz, Sam, and Tucker told Maddie and Jack everything. About the portal accident, about Danny and his powers, about how he tried his best to be a hero, about everything.

Maddie cried. Not only had she been hunting her baby boy, but now he could very possibly be dead. Because she wasn't a good enough mother to notice the fact that her baby wasn't going through a rebellious teenage phase, but was in real danger every day.

Jack cried. He'd threaten to rip apart, to kill- his own son! His little boy!

And now Danny was gone, and Jack would never be able to tell him he was so, so sorry.

.-.-.-.-.-.

They reported Danny missing. What else were they supposed to do? The police asked questions, and wanted to see the area where he had disappeared from.

Maddie found herself doing her absolute best to wash the blood and ectoplasm out of Danny's carpet so not to raise any questions they couldn't answer.

She didn't want the police to be snooping around anyway. Her baby was dead. How could he be alive? That ghost, that monster, had killed him because he thought of her son as nothing more than a hunting trophy.

And because Maddie didn't notice how badly her son needed help. Not until it was too late.

.-.-.-.-.-.

The search for Danny lasted a month and a half before Jack called it off.

He couldn't put his family through that much more pain.

They had a memorial service for Danny two weeks later. Many accused the Fentons of giving up on their son, but Jack didn't care. He wasn't giving on his son- no, Danny was dead. Danny was gone.

And not even a miracle would bring him back.

Not even a miracle _could_ bring him back.

.-.-.-.-.-.

The town forgot about Danny Fenton in less than a week. They went back to focusing on the disappearance of Danny Phantom, and how Sam Manson, Tucker Foley, and Jazz Fenton now spent all their free time hunting ghosts. They briefly focused on the fact that Jazz had apparently given up her plans to attend college so that she could focus on ghost hunting.

Sam and Tucker tried to convince her that it wasn't what Danny would've wanted, but Jazz didn't seem to care.

After all, unless her brother showed up to tell them himself that he wanted Jazz to go to college, she'd continue to hunt ghosts.

Because in the end, keeping the town safe is what she knew Danny would've wanted.

.-.-.-.-.-.

It had been three and a half months since Sam and Tucker had received the texts.

Fourteen weeks. Ninety-eight days.

Tucker knew. He'd counted.

He found himself sitting in the park, alone. It was getting colder, it would be winter soon, but Tucker didn't care.

Winter meant Christmas. Christmas was the holiday Danny all but hated.

And with his best friend gone, Tucker found that he'd be able to hate Christmas too.

In his pocket, his phone buzzed- the signal that he'd gotten a text. Tucker quickly pulled it out, pressed a few buttons, and nearly dropped it in surprise.

He'd just gotten a text reading _S.O.S._

A text from one Danny Fenton.

* * *

I think my angst is showing.

Wait, no it's not.

Thoughts, anyone?


	2. Part 2: Aftermath

/Throws confetti/ Woo it sucks.

Hello everyone, let's play a game called 'do I even have a writing style or do I just type words on a page and call it a thing?'

I'm like ninety percent sure it's the second one.

So, here you people go! Pretty much every review was asking for a second part, and I had no reason to say no. Well, unless you count the fact that this thing gets progressively less angsty and more so 'for the love of god Danny learn how to Time Teleport before you kill somebody' as it goes on.

Also to everyone who I told that this scene would be from Danny's point of view; I'm sorry, I lied. I did a few scenes of him in pain before switching to writing the aftermath of Tucker getting the text instead. Because as it turns out, I can't write doctors for the life of me.

Anyways, here's part 2. For the record, there was a part 1.5 that I posted on Tumblr which was a collect a fake screenshots of texts sent to and from Tucker in hopes that Danny would get them. Here is the link in case anyone wants to see it, just remove the obvious spaces; currently-lurking. tumblr post/60494501329/ danny-phantom-s-o-s-text-part-1-5-tuckers-texts

* * *

**Part 2;**

Danny had been fighting ghosts for hours, and he was just about ready to fall down and sleep by the time Skulker showed up. His witty banter wasn't at its best, neither was his fighting.

The fact that Skulker had a new knife that could apparently override his healing abilities complete went in one ear and out the other.

That is, until it was sticking into his left side and pain- unbearable, unthinkable, unimaginable pain- was racing through his body.

Danny did what anyone would do; panic.

He screamed. He fumbled with the Fenton Thermos and sucked the smirking Skulker in. He pulled the knife out of his side and threw it down, ignoring it as it landed in someone's roof and his green red-speckled blood splashed around it.

He fell to the ground, clutching his left side. He could feel his ghost side slipping away, but he pulled it close.

It had advanced healing. He'd be okay with that. He would.

Right?

.-.-.-.-.-.

Danny was thankful he'd been fighting near his house. He forced himself to fly up to his window, so he wouldn't have to climb or disturb anyone who was sleeping.

Or take his hand off his injured side. He wasn't too keen on that part either.

Flying took up a lot more energy than he'd thought it would, and once he was in his room, he all but crawled over to beside his bed, his eyes drifting up to his bedside clock.

It was about 2:30 in the morning.

He could work with that.

Danny pried his hand from his left side, and nearly threw up.

The wound was large, and deep, and was causing Danny to wonder if his gloves would be permanently stained the green with speckled red they had become.

And then, with a rush of more red blood, came even more pain. Even more unearthly pain.

It felt like someone was ironing his insides, boiling his blood, poking his organs with a million tiny needles...

And he'd thought the portal accident was bad. This was_ so_ much worse...

And then he coughed, which caused more pain and something to spray from his mouth, landing on the sheet that dangled down from his bed.

Blood and ectoplasm.

_This isn't good..._

It was all Danny could do to stay in his ghost form and stay awake. If he fell asleep, or turned human... It wouldn't be good. There was no way it could be good.

But... But resting would be okay, right? He'd just rest, only for a moment, and wait for this wave of intense pain to pass.

That'd be okay, right?

_Right?_

.-.-.-.-.-.

Danny's eyes shot open, though his vision was horribly blurry.

God, his side hurt. His entire body in fact, was one mess of intense- and even that was a major understatement- pain.

What in the name of Clockwork had... Oh. _Oh. _Yeah, that.

Danny let out a moan of pain and groaned as it all came back to him. And suddenly, _everything_ hurt a lot more. Even his eyebrows hurt and he wasn't exactly sure how that would work!

Had he fallen asleep?! That wasn't good, that wasn't good at all. He could've died! He_ should've_ died!

...And with the amount of pain he was in, that suddenly didn't sound like too bad of an idea.

_No! Stay positive, Fenton, you'll make it through this!_

He laid on his side for a few moments, trying to focus on anything other than the pain. He focused on the strands of black hair- _Black hair? Human form? Oh that is so not good...- _that had fallen in front of his face. He focused on what seemed to be the sound of rain outside. He tried to focus on his breathing, but moved on as every breath seemed more and more painful. He focused on how the area around him seemed to be the colors of Christmas... Oh, how he hated Christmas...

_._

_"...What about an S.O.S.? If I'm ever hurt really badly... I'll text you guys one or something. That work?"_

_._

Danny knew he'd said he'd never use it, but despite the pain he was in... He didn't want to die. He wanted to be able to hang out with Sam and Tucker again. He wanted to be able to prank his sister again. He wanted to be able to hug his parents again. He wanted to see Danielle again. He wanted to be an astronaut. He wanted to try to deny it as Frostbite called him the 'Great One' again. Danny wanted to live.

There was so much he wanted to do, and dying... It wasn't really on that list.

He lifted an arm- _why does that hurt? I didn't injure my arm, why does it... Ugh, my side...- _and reached up onto his bedside table. He knew he'd put his phone there, so where was it...?

His hand locked around the phone and he smiled, slowly pulling it down towards his face. His eyes widened as he turned it on.

_...It's nearly three in the morning._

_I've been bleeding out for half an hour._

_How the heck am I still alive?!_

He pushed the thoughts out of his mind; he needed to focus on sending the text.

But with his blurry vision and pain-filled body, it took a lot longer than it should have to type out a simple _S.O.S._

Once he had, he sent it to his best friends before collapsing against his bed.

Word could not describe how much he hurt. They simply could not.

He knew he should try to bandage his wound, or something besides placing his hands on it in an attempt to stop the flowing red-green blood. But he was just so tired, and in so much pain...

After a while, his sense of time was distorted through his pain, it occurred to him that his friends probably weren't coming. Tucker slept like the dead. And Sam... Well, she didn't sleep as deeply, but it was still rather deep.

...He'd miss them.

_God, I hurt._

He didn't want to die.

_I hurt so much..._

He wished he'd told his parents everything.

_I'm so sorry..._

He knew they'd accept him, so why didn't he?

_I..._

Now... Now it was too late.

_...I can't hold on anymore..._

Danny took a shaking breath in and laid on his right side, placing his head in the crook of his right arm. His right hand locked around his cell phone, in a tiny spark of hope that it would vibrate or ring as one of his friends read his text. His left hand was pressed against his wound, which still had blood and ectoplasm slowly bleeding from it. And it probably would continue until there wasn't any of it left in him.

_...I'm... _

_...I'm so... _

_...So sorry..._

He closed his eyes just in time to miss several tiny black sparks burst from the tips of his fingers. After a moment, they came again in greater numbers. On the third try, they created a thin coat of energy that rushed to cover his entire body- and his phone.

The energy stayed like that for a moment before expanding into a sphere, and then imploding, leaving Danny somewhere that wasn't at all his room; in fact, if anything it was a kitchen.

Moments later a tall dark-haired man entered the room, stopped where he stood as a look of pure fear appeared on his face, dropped what was in his hands, and let out a scream of horror. Another darker-skinned man in a red beret rushed into the room and put his hands on his friend's shoulders before noticing Danny. It only took a moment before he was screaming, too.

.-.-.-.-.-.

Three and half months later, Tucker stared down at his phone with his mouth opening and closing in an impersonation of a finless fish. His breathing quickened, and his heart started pounding.

This couldn't be happening. It couldn't, it wasn't possible, it- Danny was dead. He had to be; that much blood and ectoplasm... Danny wouldn't be alive.

He shouldn't. He couldn't. He would've been back long ago if he was even a ghost!

Nonetheless, Tucker slowly found himself texting Danny two confused messages before pressing a button to dial his friend. He brought his phone to his ear, his breath caught in his throat.

It didn't even ring, and went straight to voicemail; "Hey, you've reached the phone of Danny Fenton. Looks like I've missed your call- sorry about that -but leave a message after the beep and I'll get back to you as soon as I can!"

Tucker nearly broke into tears at the sound of his friend's voice, and lowered his phone as he hung it up. It had been the first time he'd heard Danny's voice in those three months, and the first time his attempts at calling his friend had gone through. The fact that it hadn't rang meant either the phone was off, or the battery had died.

But that was still enough to bring up the hope that he had been trying so desperately to hide.

He ran out of the park, sending Danny a few more rushed texts as he did so, and was nearly at his destination before it occurred to him to text Sam. Which he did; _Something came up, heading to Fenton Works._

.-.-.-.-.-.

Sam was already there when she got the text from Tucker, though she only glanced at it for a moment before she and sent him a '_k_' and went back to what she had been doing; helping Jack and Jazz Fenton fine-tune some of the ghost hunting weapons.

"Tucker's coming over," She spoke up, taking a wrench from Jack and placing it in a tool box.

"I thought he didn't want to meet us here today," Jazz sounded confused, "What could've made him change his mind?"

"I don't know," Sam shrugged, "But he just texted me, and- what?" She cut off as she noticed both Jazz and Jack giving her a look with narrowed eyes.

"...Nothing." Jack muttered, looking back at the weapon. "But if he's coming over, you should go up and let him in. I-" He was cut off as something crashed on the floor above them and Tucker half fell down the stairs with a panicked look on his face.

"Where is it?!" He called, using the wall to support himself while breathing heavily.

"Where is what?" Sam asked, looking around in confusion. _He got here fast._

"That boomerang! The one that tracks Danny!" Tucker replied, rushing over to a table that was cluttered with weapons.

Sam winced, shooting a look towards Jack and Jazz. Both were watching Tucker with confused expressions, and Jack was slowly standing up.

"Why? My son is dead." He spoke up, and Jazz moved closer to him. "He's gone. ...Why do you need that... That device?"

"Because he isn't!" Tucker called, dropping to his knees and looking under a table.

Sam blinked, taking a step towards her remaining friend. "Tucker..." _I know he's still upset about Danny, but this... _"Please, I know you're upset- and you have every right to be- but he's gone. Danny's gone." She took a shaking breath in, fighting to keep the tears out of her eyes and failing. "He's gone, Tucker, and he isn't coming back."

"But he texted me!" Tucker protested, standing up and rushing over to a counter. He pushed the various beaks aside, still frantically searching. "He texted me an S.O.S. just a few minutes ago! He needs me- us! We can't let him go again!"

"Tucker..." Sam muttered, a few of her tears rolling down her cheeks. She missed Danny too, but this was ridiculous! It wasn't helping anybody!

"Here," Maddie suddenly called, and Sam turned to see that Danny's mother had just entered the lab. She handed Tucker his phone, "You dropped this." Tucker didn't get a chance to thank her before she reached up onto a high shelf, and pulled down the Boo-merang. "Find Danny!"

She threw it easily, and then something Sam hadn't quite expected was triggered. The Boo-merang started to flash, a signal that it had picked up the ecto signature of what it was supposed to track.

Everyone stood frozen for a second before Sam raced up the stairs after it, a shout of hope escaping her lips. "DANNY!"

.-.-.-.-.-.

The Boo-merang behaved oddly, if that could be considered the right word. It had moments where it would just stop working, and nobody was too sure why. But it eventually led the Fentons, Sam, and Tucker in the Spector Speeder to a field just outside of Amity.

And in that field, in a small circle of flattened grass, they found someone who they had thought was dead.

Danny had been unconscious, with a small stain of blood on the grass by his left side and phone in his hand. He had also been in his human form, and was in someone's too-big t-shirt.

But they didn't care. It didn't matter.

Somehow, against all odds and by some miracle, he was breathing and had a pulse.

Against all odds, Danny was _alive._

.-.-.-.-.-.

They took him to the hospital, and he was wheeled away within seconds. The police were called with questions for Jack and Maddie- they seemed to have a feeling that they had done this to Danny.

It seemed like nothing would go right for them, until Vlad Masters showed up to assure the police that his parents had nothing to do with it.

They didn't question as how Vlad had found out, and it didn't seem important. He payed to have Danny moved to his own room, and for him to have the best doctors the hospital had to offer. And then he convinced the hospital staff- though Jack and Maddie weren't sure how- to let them all wait around for Danny to wake up, with Tucker and Sam's parents joining them less than an hour later.

At one point a doctor came out to talk to them, saying that Danny had been very gravely injured; he'd nearly been stabbed completely through from his left side to his right, with whatever blade it had been arching upwards so that instead of doing so it had punctured his lung. However, most of those injuries had nearly healed now, and besides the entry wound, there would be no scars. And that one had nearly healed- it had been stitched up, though a few of the stitches had broken recently. That must've been why he was bleeding in the field.

Sam and Tucker had recalled the time, months ago, when they had joked that a cut of Danny's side was him being shish-kabob'd. It didn't seem funny now that he almost truly had.

It was said that it was a miracle Danny was alive. That he must've been in excruciating pain, and he had to have been saved by somebody who knew exactly what he was doing and had likely seen this type of injury before. The doctors couldn't understand it; Danny shouldn't be alive, they said that outright. He should've bled out. He should've died.

Those who knew chalked it down as his ghost side saving him- it wouldn't be the first time, and he did have advanced healing. It would also explain why there had been so much ectoplasm in his room; he'd tried to stay ghost for as long as he could so that he'd be able to heal himself.

That of course, was leaving out the fact that Skulker had said his knife overrode Danny's healing abilities.

A few hours later, the doctor came back to tell them that though they couldn't see him yet, Danny would be fine. There was a problem, though.

He had woken up a few minutes before, confused and muttering something about a 'plan'. Before convincing him to rest, they had managed to get a small tidbit of information from him; he couldn't remember what had happened.

.-.-.-.-.-.

Danny had been very confused when his family finally got permission to visit him. They had heard him mumbling 'I'm back?' on more than one occasion. He also seemed very surprised that he'd been gone for so long, Jazz thought that she'd heard him mentioning that he could've sworn it was 'only two' once.

He still claimed that he didn't remember what had happened, which concerned Jazz. Wasn't blocking the memories of a trauma a sign of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder?

When his friends were cleared to visit him, Danny ignored them. Despite all their apologies, the most he ever acknowledged the fact they existed was when he looked towards the door when they entered. Jazz knew that would end badly, for Danny and his friends. After all, Danny had paid more attention to _Lancer _when the teacher had showed up to talk to him about the school he'd missed than he had to his friends!

And then there was Vlad. Danny honestly didn't seem to care when the older hybrid showed up, and Vlad had tried to overshadow him once when Maddie and Jack had left the room, in an attempt to discover the boys repressed memories of the incident.

Jazz wasn't sure what had happened, but Vlad had looked horrified as a result and had made a comment about pain and knowing what the doctors had meant when they'd said Danny should've died.

.-.-.-.-.-.

It wasn't long before the media learned of what had happened. Many reporters and journalists tried to get a interview with the Fentons, Sam, Tucker, or even Vlad. For the longest time, none of them answered that call. Until Vlad called a press conference.

He never completely lied, nor told the truth. Vlad told the media the shortened version of what they knew; Danny had been attacked by a ghost, somebody who knew exactly what to do had saved him, and he'd been placed in a field three and a half months later, where he was rushed to hospital and it was discovered he couldn't remember what had happened. It was barely enough to keep people satisfied, and enough to confirm with Maddie and Jack that Vlad knew their son's secret as well.

Upon breaking the story, Amity News referred to Danny as a 'Miracle Child'.

The name stuck, much to Danny's annoyance. Even a few nurses started to refer to him by it. Jazz jokingly called him by it once, causing Danny to just turn and glare at her for a good thirty seconds.

.-.-.-.-.-.

When Sam and Tucker went back to school a few days later, a few things were drawn to their attention.

The first was that the entire school knew that Danny wasn't in fact dead.

The second was that they had all kind of theories about how he'd survived- one of them being that he was actually dead and was now a ghost.

The third was that Valerie had been very quick to shoot down any of the rumors of Danny being a ghost that she'd heard, and was very anxious for a chance to see him.

The fourth was that Dash never once made any jokes about Danny's apparent death.

And the fifth was that more than one person had noticed that both Danny Fenton and Danny Phantom had disappeared at the same time.

.-.-.-.-.-.

It was nearly a week later that the Fenton Family- and for the first time in months, Danny included- piled into the Fenton RV. They had only kept him so long for observation; aside from his injury and apparent missing memory, Danny had been perfectly healthy.

There was an eerie near-silence that had filled the RV, as nobody really knew what to say. Jazz had convinced her parents to at least keep quiet about knowing Danny's secret until he was at a more stable mental state, so talking about anything to do with his ghost side was out of the question. Small talk was out of the question, they had tried that on the way out of the hospital. It had been awkward and strained and half the time the only reply anyone ever got from each other was grunt that could mean anything. They couldn't joke about Jack's driving, as Maddie had taken the wheel.

Jazz found her eyes drifting towards her brother, who was staring out the window as she had been moments ago. He had one hand on his left side, and with the other he silently tapped his fingers against his seatbelt.

Jazz opened her mouth to talk to him, but no words came. What could she even say? That she was sorry she'd been sleeping while he bled out on his bedroom floor?

"Oh no," Danny suddenly mumbled under his breath, and Jazz barely caught it. She caught sight of a small bit of fog disappearing by his nose, and the tapping stopped. Outside the RV there was one ghost... Technus, wasn't it? That sounded right. Technus was fighting the Red Huntress, and the ghost hunter wasn't exactly winning.

Jazz shot a pleading look at her parents, who were both focused on the road ahead. She knew they had turned off their ghost detection gear in fear that it would pick up Danny, but the Red Huntress looked like she needed help. She was about to attempt to get their attention, when from the corner of her eye she noticed Danny shift himself slightly.

Jazz felt her heart clench as she watched her brother move himself into a position where he couldn't be seen in their parents' mirrors. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath in, and just kind of... Sat there.

After a moment- and only for a few seconds- his hand turned invisible. It didn't last very long, and Danny looked very disappointed when he opened his eyes to see that his hand was visible.

"Danny..." Jazz muttered, "Are you okay?"

"...I'm fine..." Danny mumbled in reply, his voice with a scratching undertone. He took a shaking breath in and turned back to the window, watching the fight outside it.

Jazz only hesitated a moment before directing her parents to the fight going on outside, never once looking away from her brother until their parents had assisted the Red Huntress, she had flown off on her jet sled, and they were safely home.

Danny's first reaction had been to ask if he could go lie down, which their parents agreed to. After all, he had been told by the doctors to take it easy for the next while. Jazz followed him as he made his way up to his room, despite his protests.

She needed to talk to him; she really needed to talk to him. Danny wouldn't forget something like what had happened, and if she could talk to him alone in a place he was more comfortable in and away from people he didn't know, she'd be more likely to get answers.

She never did get any, because when Danny got to his room he stood in the doorway for a minute. Taking quick, shaky breaths in as both his hands pressed against his left side.

Jazz was just about to ask if he was okay when he'd ran a little down the hall, ducking into the guest room. He'd slammed and locked the door behind him, and when Jazz went to ask if he was okay the only reply she got was a muffled and stuttered, "I-I think I'll stay in here for now."

.-.-.-.-.-.

There was a week before Danny requested to go back to school, much to everyone's surprise. In the end, after much convincing from Danny's part, they allowed him- only to realize that it was a horrible mistake.

He called home during lunch, and Maddie answered. It didn't take long before she was driving down to the school to pick him up.

They later found out- via Sam calling to talk to them as Danny had gone off to hide in the guest room the first chance he got- that Danny had been mobbed by his fellow students, had Dash defend him from the other A-listers' questions about his connection to Danny Phantom, had a bunch of people ask him if he was a ghost, and had tried to avoid Sam and Tucker as much as possible.

They had eventually cornered him in a school bathroom, and after a bit of pressing, Danny had flipped.

He hadn't forgiven them for missing his text. That much had been certain. He had been upset, and seemed very aware that he should've bled out on his bedroom floor.

But when asked about the text he'd sent to Tucker when he was in the field, Danny had revealed an useful tidbit of information; he'd claimed that he'd meant to send the text to someone else.

After that, Danny had gone off by himself, and the last they saw of him that day was at lunch. That was when they had seen him go outside with Valerie.

That was enough for Jazz to decide she needed to talk to Danny. But she had barely made it to the top of the stairs when from Danny's temporary room, there was a yelp and Danny ran to the bathroom, the door slamming behind him.

Jazz hesitated for a split second before rushing after her brother, and calling through the closed door, "Danny? Are you okay?!"

"I, uh... I'm fine!" Danny replied, and there was the sound of water running.

"Are you sure...?" Jazz trailed off slightly, reaching for the door handle.

"D-don't come in!" Danny shouted, "I'm, uh... Not wearing any pants!"

"Oh," Jazz frowned, and took a few steps back and to the side. "Are you sure you're okay? Should I get Mom and Dad?"

"I'm fine, Jazz!" Danny replied, "Trust me, I'm-"

He finished that sentence with a scream of fear, and Jazz found herself frozen in place against a wall as there was a blast of energy. The door was thrown back so that it was barely on its hinges, and after a moment, Jazz slowly leaned forward.

The bathroom was utterly destroyed; mirrors were cracked, shampoo and other products had exploded against the walls, the shower curtain had fallen down, and water seemed to be leaking out from the pipes in the sink.

But the worst part of all was that Danny was nowhere in sight.

Her little brother was gone again.

"No," She whispered, her voice steadily getting higher and louder. "No, no, no, no, no! MOM, DAD! Danny... He's… No, no, no… _DANNY_!"

.-.-.-.-.-.

Danny sat on the floor of his temporary bedroom, one hand on his left side and the other bouncing a small orange ball against the wall.

He'd lied. He'd lied about a lot of things.

Not intentionally, not at first; just when the truth made no sense.

After all, how would he be able to explain that he was pretty sure he had spent at least two months with twenty-years-in-the-future versions of himself and Tucker? It didn't make sense, even without the missing month and a half! Let alone the fact that future him somehow managed to become a doctor despite the fact that Danny had been nearly failing school and had a ghost side that was pretty much broken so he could only access a few of the powers? That for the longest time, what had kept Danny alive was the fact that both his ghost and human half had been pretty much feeding off of each other's energy, which even though it had put him through indescribable pain? How could he explain that once he had been stitched up and future him had provided Danny with some of the blood he'd lost- Danny wasn't sure how the future him had the means to do so, but he wasn't complaining- future him had disconnected his human and ghost sides so they'd stop pretty much eating each other?

How would it be possible to explain the panic he'd felt once he could think clearly again; he'd been in a strange place, in strange clothes, with strange pain in his side.

He had tried so hard to keep the memory of the incident from his mind, but it would always come back; Skulker's smirk, the red and green falling all around him...

Danny bit his lip, the ball bouncing past him as he closed his eyes and moved his other hand to his left side. Slowly and nearly silently, he chanted, "No, no thinking, no thinking, no thinking..."

Once he'd stopped focusing on the incident, Danny found his fingers tapping on his bedroom floor. He'd been doing that a lot lately, though he wasn't sure why.

...He hated that as much as he'd told everyone he didn't remember what had happened, he honestly couldn't forget it.

He could remember that when he first realized what was going on, he'd tried to escape; thinking he'd been kidnapped or something. He'd run into the future him and Tucker, and while the three of them were panicking for different reasons future Danielle had shown up and knocked him out.

He had woken up tied to a bed. That hadn't been a good day.

He'd eventually gotten an explanation, and there had been more freaking out before future him had assured Danny that once they'd decided it was safe, they were going to take him to Clockwork so they could get him home.

After all, it had been assumed between the four of them that Clockwork was the reason Danny had ended up in that future.

_Well, at least I didn't kill everyone in that future._

Danny stood up, and walked across the room to find the ball. He didn't like this room, but he couldn't go back into his. Not after everything; he couldn't stop thinking of it without all the blood, ectoplasm, and pain.

While he was in the future, they had come up with a solution to make sure that his human side would heal properly; future him seemed to doubt his abilities or something. Once they were sure his human and ghost sides wouldn't start eating each other again, they would drive him to a hospital and say they found him in a field. He would keep his actual name, because none of them trusted him to think up and remember a new one, and when asked about what happened he would claim he didn't remember. And once they were sure he was healed, future him would go get Clockwork and send Danny home.

It was supposed to have been simple.

Danny picked up the little orange ball and settled back into the same position as before, bouncing the ball a few times before his gaze drifted towards his phone.

What was probably the most confusing moment of that whole event was when future Tucker had mention that he'd gotten the text, as had Sam. They'd gotten Jazz to go make sure that he didn't die while they got an ambulance over to his house. Future Danny apparently hadn't time traveled.

Danny wasn't sure, but since he had, that probably meant he'd prevented a chunk of that future. That could be where problems would arise, and it probably wouldn't go well.

Future Tucker, despite everything, had become a great friend to Danny; much like his past counterpart had been. He'd given Danny his phone number, saying that if he'd ever had a problem before he went home, Danny could text him and he'd be there as soon as he could.

Danny pulled his phone down into his lap, grabbing the ball before flipping through his texts. There were a lot from past Tucker, who had seemed desperate for Danny to be alive.

Danny knew he should forgive him, and Sam too. Just... Not yet. He wasn't ready yet. They had left him to die; he wasn't ready to forgive them just yet.

Future him had reconnected his human and ghost halves a day before he'd ended up in the field. Future Danielle and future Tucker had said they had to go to work- Danielle had worked at a daycare and Tucker had currently been the deputy mayor- so they had left. Future him said he was going to take a nap, and that if Danny needed anything or felt an increase in pain he should just scream.

Danny, bored, had tried to use his powers for a little bit. They wouldn't activate, which honestly hadn't surprised him. The future people had mentioned that since his injury was with a weapon that had been meant to override his healing abilities, his powers would be unusable for a few weeks, and when he could use them again they'd be very unstable.

After a while, he'd started playing a game on his phone. He'd drained the battery down so that there was barely any power left, and then his hands had done something weird.

A few tiny black sparks had come from his fingers.

At first, Danny had thought he imagined it. Until it had happened again, and then a third time where it crawled up his arms and curled around his phone in a dark wisp of energy.

Danny hadn't been able to scream; fear had locked his jaw in place. The energy had covered him and blasted outward into a ball of dark sparks before imploding.

The next thing Danny had known, he'd fallen in a field. He'd rolled over to see that the clothes he'd been wearing- which had all belonged to his future self- now had a small blood stain on the left side.

He could clearly remember panicking, and trying to text or call future Tucker at every number he could remember being told of. None of them worked, the text or call wouldn't work. Panicking and bleeding as his phone died, Danny had tried one final thing; sending an S.O.S. to past Tucker's number.

It had worked, and Danny had somehow managed to either fall asleep or possibly pass out in the field minutes later.

He didn't know he was in the past until his sister had shown up in his hospital room, and by then it was too late; he'd already assumed it was part of the plan. His parents had rarely left the two of them alone when Danny was awake, and the only time they had Vlad was there.

According to the future Danielle, Vlad had become a better person in the future and had actually helped future Danny pay his way through medical school. So Danny hadn't been completely surprised when Vlad showed up. The fact that the man wanted to overshadow him to access his 'repressed' memories of the incident wasn't something Danny approved of, so he had focused on the blood that had covered his room and stained his gloves.

Seeing Vlad be thrown out of his body and hit a wall as a result was rather funny.

And now, here he was. Home, confused, with a stupid nickname that future him had apparently gotten as well, and regretting asking to go to school.

Valerie knew his secret. She'd come to try to talk to him, and his powers had activated causing him to half phase through the ground before Valerie had pulled him out. She had put it all together; she knew he was Danny Phantom.

On one hand, he could be happy that his powers were coming back. On the other... What would Valerie do, now that she knew who he was? Would she tell everyone? Would she hunt him in human form as well? Would she tell his parents, and have both sides gang up on him so that they could take down Danny Phantom together?

Danny whipped the ball against the wall, ducking to the side as it came back towards his head.

He was about to get up to go find it once again when his heart skipped a beat as more black sparks shot from his fingers.

Danny let out a yelp of surprise, stumbling backwards and dropping his phone- which somehow fell into his pocket. There was the second wave of sparks, and Danny panicked. He rushed out of the room and down the hallway, into the bathroom where he slammed the door behind him.

"Danny?" Jazz was suddenly calling through the closed door, "Are you okay?!"

"I, uh... I'm fine!" Danny called back, turning on the tap and shoving his hand under the water. _I don't know what I'm doing, but please work!_

"Are you sure...?" Jazz asked in reply, and the door handle moved slightly.

_Oh no, you are not watching me screw up my powers. _"D-don't come in!" Danny shouted, "I'm, uh... not wearing any pants!" _...Smooth, Fenton. Real smooth._

"Oh," Jazz was silent for a moment, "Are you sure you're okay? Should I get Mom and Dad?"

"How about no," Danny muttered under his breath, shoving his hand deeper into the water. He turned towards the door just in time to miss the third wave of sparks and the energy- darker and thicker than before- start up his arm. "Trust me, I'm-"

It was then he noticed the energy covering his shoulders, and Danny let out a scream of fear as it coated the rest of him. It expanded into a ball, and then imploded.

The next thing Danny knew, he was in some sort of park, lying beside a flattened bush. A little ways away he could hear children laughing, and he sat up slowly.

"...Did I just teleport or something...?" He muttered, and slowly placed a hand on his left side and under his shirt.

_Oh, I'm not bleeding this time. That's a bonus._

He stood up, quickly making his way into a clump of trees. He walked quickly, and found himself stopping as he heard what sounded like a child crying. A woman laughed, saying aloud, "Look, they're sharing!"

Danny stopped, looking back in confusion. The woman's voice sounded somewhat familiar and it was... Strange.

"Danny, sweetie, don't do that to your sister's bear."

"Yeah, my Bearbert!"

Okay, something was _seriously_ wrong.

Hesitantly, Danny made his way out of the cover of trees, to see three people; a mother with her young daughter a baby son.

Something was familiar about all of them. Very, _very,_ familiar.

The mother pulled a teddy bear away from her son, and Danny felt something twist in his gut as the baby reached after the bear, and the mother handed it back to her daughter. "Here, Jazzy. Bearbert's just fine."

"Bearbert!" The young girl, who couldn't be older than two, hugged the stuffed toy close to herself.

Danny took a step back, "Oh, oh no. This isn't possible, this is so..." He took another step back before turning. Soon he found himself running, holding the hand that the black sparks had come from.

It should be possible, yet it fit.

He'd been to the future.

He was in the past.

_Oh my god... How does this... I shouldn't... It... _

_...I can time travel._

_Oh my god, I can time travel._

.-.-.-.-.-.

"_Time Teleportation; one of the original Timey Powers- powers with the ability to mess with the Timelines on a large scale- and one of the most damaging. The user releases energy, which coats them and causes a small portal through time- and on rare occasions, the Timelines- to appear. Excess energy will be dispersed into the area around them. The portal will only take the user and things in their immediate possession. For example, say the user was holding a rock while they Time Teleported. The rock would come with them. Like all Timey Powers, it must be channeled through an object. As the most unpredictable of the Timey Powers, it has allegedly turned itself off in past instances, allowing the ghost who uses it to suddenly find themselves missing their Timey Power. If the opportunity is presented, it is best to attempt to remove this power. If that doesn't work, ending their existence is the best option." _

Clockwork frowned as he remembered the ancient words from the Observants, and his eyes seemed to be pulled slowly towards his scythe.

No. No matter what, he wasn't killing anyone.

Daniel may have developed a Timey Power to save himself and ended up in an alternate Timeline which had been known as Mercy-2, but Clockwork would not kill him.

Time Teleporting was unpredictable, even if the ghost had a stable core- which Daniel, a hybrid, most certainly did not have- it could very likely suddenly stop working. Clockwork could only hope that would happen, and if not, he would intervene and attempt to lock that power within the farthest regions of the boy's core.

If that didn't work? Well, he just had to hope it would.

And if the Observants disagreed with his methods they could go eat blood blossoms.

* * *

That last line will be extra amusing to the like, two people who know about the headcanon I have with dried blood blossoms.

So yeah, see what I mean when I said this was filled with my Timeline Theory? It is literally filled with other Timelines, Timey Powers (that is actually is their official name and Pariah Dark's to blame), and Clockwork trying to wait it out.

Plus there's Mercy-2; if anyone wants an explanation about it they can ask and I'll attempt to explain it. I'll probably fail, but hey, there'll be an attempt.

So, besides 'ew, Timeline Theory,' what are everybody's thoughts?


End file.
